A new year has a lot of folks looking ahead to making travel plans for family vacations and quick getaways over upcoming three-day weekends. We thought that since we have been posting about our road trips around New Mexico and Colorado, some of you may be inspired to head out west in 2017. Here are a few attractions and travel resources to help you decide where you want to go and when.

Leaving our home in Cocoa after fifteen years (and feeling quite an emotional return), we lamented not being able to experience another hurricane in the high-and-dry oasis of River Heights. As fate would have it, we actually were able to ride out the spinning giant named Matthew while staying at Mark’s house for an appropriately-timed and eventful family visit. What a thrill to experience the awesome and intense tropical power one more time!!!

It is really hard to describe in words this ancient and mystical place and convey the appropriate sentiment. Chaco is a marker in time that connects us to the eternal order, and is a waypoint for the spiritual traveler on this earth.

Yes! We made it!! It’s just incredible- everything just as we remembered, and filling us with an electric energy. So surreal knowing that we are here to stay… Just perched on the side of a mountain with nothing but ourselves to create this whole new world and way of life.

Missed opportunity by not taking pics of the Conestoga wagon passing through American landmarks, but here’s a couple I snapped during my shift in the Saturn through Shreveport and Dallas. If you’ve never driven through Dallas, don’t. The most horrendous roads EVER, and that’s after driving the everlasting bone-jarring concrete in Mississippi!!

In bed at 2:30am and up at 6:00 for some final tear-filled farewells before our 7:00am departure, today is the day we’ve been anticipating all these months… Lots of mixed emotions, but we’re finally and enthusiastically on the road to fulfill our modern day Manifest Destiny.